NEWS WRAP

US-Australia alliance more important than ever: Payne

• Western democracies cannot be complacent about guarding the international rules-based order, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne warned during a speech to the United States Studies Centre last night, as she vowed to continue to challenge China on its human rights abuses. Declaring Australia's alliance with the United States as "more important to us than ever", Payne said Australia's long-term interests would depend on "taking a firm stand", even if it displeased other countries, including an "increasingly assertive and influential China". READ MORE HERE.
  ​

• President Trump announced Sunday that an American commando raid in Syria culminated in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the ISIS, after a five-year international manhunt, claiming a significant victory even as American forces begin pulling out of the area. READ MORE HERE.
   

• A White House national security official and decorated Iraq war veteran told House impeachment investigators on Tuesday that he heard President Trump appeal to Ukraine’s president to investigate political rival Joe Biden, a request he considered so damaging to American interests that he reported it to a superior. Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman was the first White House official to testify who actually listened in on the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. READ MORE HERE.
   
• Former Republican congresswoman Mia Love wrapped up her Australian tour with an extended interview on the ABC's Planet America program on Friday. Love spoke to hosts John Barron and Chas Licciardello about her time in the US House of Representatives, her interactions with President Trump and the possibility of a political comeback. WATCH HERE.
   
• How did a quintessentially American holiday get a foothold in Oz? American Studies lecturer Rodney Taveira is called on each year to explain Halloween's popularity in Australia. He's written an explainer with his thoughts on the growing cultural phenomenon on our website. READ MORE HERE.

ANALYSIS

 The geographic limits of one unconventional presidential bid

Elliott Brennan
Research associate

Paige Remington
Research intern

New York businessman and entrepreneur Andrew Yang's unconventional bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination was supposed to be a long-shot campaign. But in recent months Yang has secured relatively strong polling figures, booming fundraising numbers and a dedicated base of niche supporters whose overriding connection to each other is the fact that they discovered Yang online. 

Yang's campaign has drawn on elements of both Trump and Bernie Sanders' 2016 electoral bids. Like Trump, he comes from well outside the realm of politics and purports to be bringing a business sensibility to the top office. His campaign, though, is ideas-driven. Its main vehicle, the Freedom Dividend – a revamped take on a universal basic income – is not dissimilar in scale and ambition to the Democratic Socialism that Sanders deployed to rock the party establishment back in 2016.

Perhaps the best measure of the rise of Yang is where he stood on the Democratic debate platform two weeks ago: off the left shoulder of Elizabeth Warren, between Pete Buttigieg and Beto O’Rourke. That's a position directly comparable to Kamala Harris’, to the right of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. 

In a field with two clear favourites (Biden and Warren), Yang finds himself firmly in the second tier. This is a tier former presidents Clinton and Obama could have counted themselves among in the lead up to their respective election years. But Yang’s challenge is larger than those past. To pull off a momentum-grabbing result early in the primary voting process, he will have to master a crucial element of American elections that has thus far eluded him: geography.   

Traditionally, success in the early polling states of Iowa and New Hampshire is an essential stepping stone in the race to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. Iowa’s vote on February 3 and New Hampshire’s vote on February 11 are signal boosters. They provide the first indications of a candidate’s viability and capture the attention of the nation’s press. A good result in either of these states can propel a presidential hopeful into the consciousness of both voters and pundits. 

If a candidate doesn’t lay good foundations early in the primary voting process, success at the Super Tuesday primaries – when 24 states simultaneously vote on March 24 – is insurmountable. And this is where the trouble lays for Yang. His fervent supporters are too geographically dispersed across the United States to help him win substantial state votes in the primary process. Although his national numbers are relatively strong in a large field, they’re not as strong in key primary states.

His unique cohort of supporters, coined the ‘Yang Gang’, is chiefly made up of young men who spend a good deal of time online. As well as being geographically dispersed, Yang’s supporters span the political spectrum and tick many of the standard ‘unlikely voter’ boxes.   

In a lot of states, this means Yang supporters will have to first register as Democrats, and then go out and vote in the primaries. If they live in a caucus state like Iowa, they will have to attend the full hours-long event in person. Although mobilising unlikely voters is a tried-and-tested method of pulling an electoral rabbit out of a hat, it's a trick that looks nearly impossible for Yang to pull off.

None of this is to say that the Yang campaign is dead. While the actual process of securing the nomination relies on geography, securing a place on the debate stage relies on nation-wide measures of polling and unique donor numbers – areas that have suited Yang just fine. 

Unlike stalwart Democrats, Yang won’t be faced with the career-threatening prospect of irking the Democratic establishment by staying in the race when the odds of success have waned beyond the threshold of impossibility. This means that his out-of-the-box ideas will be in the party’s discourse at least until the Democratic National Convention in July 2020. 

Ideas lingering in the ranks of a Democratic Party that is still finding its feet after the 2016 election could have the inertia to well-outlast the candidacy of Yang. Like Sanders' Democratic Socialism, Yang's Freedom Dividend and artificial intelligence alarmism could yet shape the party for years to come – with or without him. 

DIARY

The week ahead

• Wednesday, 30 October: US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure will hold a hearing examining the design, development and marketing of Boeing's 737 MAX aircraft.
   

• Thursday, 31 October: Halloween.
   

• Friday, 1 November: President Trump is scheduled to host a rally in Mississippi.
   

• Tuesday, 5 November: Gubernatorial elections will be held in Kentucky and Mississippi.

EVENT

#MeToo's champions in conversation​

The MeToo Movement – recipient of the 2019 Sydney Peace Prize – has changed the way we understand and talk about sexual harassment and violence around the world, in homes, public spaces, and workplaces. 

Tarana Burke began building the movement in 2006 to help survivors of sexual violence, particularly black women and girls, connect to resources for healing, and to establish a survivor-led community of advocates against sexual violence. Tracey Spicer AM spearheaded the movement in Australia, producing award-winning investigations into sexual harassment in media workplaces.

The United States Studies Centre will host both Burke and Spicer in conversation with journalist and presenter Jan Fran, to discuss the founding and future of the movement.

This event is presented in partnership with the University of Sydney's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Sydney Peace Foundation.

DATE & TIME
Tuesday, 12 November 2019
6pm–7.30pm

LOCATION
Lecture Theatre 1110, Abercrombie Business School Building (corner of Abercrombie and Codrington Streets), University of Sydney

COST
Free, but registration required.

VIDEO

Elijah Cummings remembered​

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#Conan